TMT Trends 2015 – Star Wars, Tech Wars & Talent Wars

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*Our 2016 trends for the sector can be found here*

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Our most popular article this year by far was a piece we wrote on trends in the media and entertainment industry for the coming twelve months. That nothing has been written since January that has proved as popular as that is a little disappointing, but it is a good indication of what users come to this blog for.

It’s been an interesting past month or so in the Technology, Media and Telecoms sector. We’re going to attempt to recap some of the more consequential things here, as well as the impact they may have into next year.

Star Wars – And the blockbuster dilemma

Friday saw the release of the first trailer for Star Wars Episode VII, due for release December 2015. CNBC covered the release at the coda of European Closing Bell, around the point of a segment a story might be done about a cat caught up a tree (“On a lighter note…”). They discussed the trailer and the franchise on a frivolous note at first, mostly joking about the length of time since the original film’s release. One of the anchors then went on to claim that Disney’s purchase of “Lucasfilms” [sic] and the release of this trilogy of films, given the muted reaction to Episodes I-III, constituted a huge bet on Disney’s part. This showed a profound lack of understanding. Collectively, Episodes I-III, disappointing artistically as they may have been, made a cool $1.2bn. And this is just at the box office. Homevideo revenues would probably have been the same again, almost certainly more. Most importantly (whether we like it or not), are revenue streams like toy sales, theme park rides and the like (see below graphic, from StatisticBrain). So we are talking about a product that, despite many not being impressed with, managed to generate several billion dollars for Fox, Lucasfilm, et al. With a more reliable pair of hands at the helm in the form of J.J. Abrams, to say Episodes VII-IX are a huge bet is questionable thinking at best.

It can be easy for pundits to forget those ancillary streams, but in contemporary Hollywood it is such areas that are key, and fundamentally influence what films get made. Kenneth Turan, writing in mid-September for the LA Times, echoed such thinking. As with our Star Wars example; so “with the Harry Potter films, and it is happening again with ‘Frozen’, with Disney announcing just last week that it would construct a ‘Frozen’ attraction at Orlando’s Disney World”. It is why studios have scheduled, as of August this year, some 30 movies based on comicbooks to be released over the coming years. Of course, supply follows demand. Such generic shlock wouldn’t be made again and again (and again) if consumers didn’t exercise their capitalist right to choose it and consume it. We have been given  Transformers 4 because the market said it wanted it.

But is this desire driven by a faute de mieux – a lack of anything better – in said market? David Fincher may not have been far off the mark back in September when he mentioned in an interview with Playboy that “studios treat audiences like lemmings, like cattle in a stockyard“. But a shift from such a narrow mindset may prove difficult in a consolidated environment – Variety’s editor-in-chief Peter Bart pointed out recently that “six companies control 90% of the media consumed by Americans, compared with 50 companies some 30 years ago”. Some players of course are trying to change the way the business this works. The most provocative statement of this was in September when Netflix announced a sequel to “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, to be released day-and-date across Netflix and in IMAX cinemas. Kudos. It’s the kind of thing this blog has been advocating since its inception. Though not in accordance with a capitalist model, the market is certainly showing a desire for more day-and-date releases. Netflix isn’t a lone outlier as on OTT provider trying to develop exclusive content that goes beyond comicbooks (that in itself should give Netflix pause; about a fifth of its market value has eroded since mid-October). Hulu’s efforts with J.J. Abrams and Stephen King, as well as Amazon’s universally acclaimed Transparent series (full disclosure, a good friend works on the show; Zeitgeist was privileged to take a look around the sets on the Paramount lot while in Los Angeles this summer). And that’s not to say innovative content can’t be developed around blockbuster fare; we really liked 20th Century Fox’s partnership with Vice for ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’, creating short films that filled the gaps between the film and its predecessor. Undoubtedly the model needs to change; unlike last summer, there were no outright bombs this year at the box office, but receipts fell 15% all the same. The first eight months of 2014 were more than $400m behind the same period in 2013. Interviewed in the FT, Robert Fishman, an analyst with MoffettNathanson put it wisely, “It always comes down to the product on the screen. And the product on the screen just hasn’t delivered.” An editorial in The Economist earlier this month praised Hollywood’s business model, suggesting other businesses should emulate it. But beyond some good marketing tactics there seems little that should be copied by others. Indeed, lots more work is needed. Perhaps the first step is merely rising that not all blockbusters need to be released in the summer. Next year, James Bond, Star Wars and The Avengers will all arrive on screens… spread throughout the year. Expect 2015 to feature more innovation on the part of exhibitors too, beyond having their customers be rained on.

Tech wars – Hacking, piracy and monopolies

Sony Pictures faced some embarrassment this week when hackers claimed to have penetrated the company’s systems, getting away with large volumes of data that included detailed information on talent (such as passport details for the likes of Angelina Jolie and Cameron Diaz). The full story is still unfolding. We’ve written a couple of times recently about cybersecurity; it was disappointing but unsurprising to see the spectre of digital warfare raise its head again twice in the past week. The first instance was with Regin, an impressive bit of malware, which seems to be the successor to Stuxnet, a spying program developed by Israeli and American intelligence forces to undermine Iranian efforts to develop nuclear materials. Symantec said Regin had probably taken years to develop, with “a degree of technical competence rarely seen”. Regin was focused on Saudia Arabia, Russia, but also Ireland and India, which muddies the waters of authorship. However, in these post-Snowden days it is well known that friendly countries go to significant lengths to spy on each other, and The Economist posited at least part of the malware was created by those in the UK. Deloitte, ranked number one globally in security consulting by Gartner, is on the case.

The news in other parts of the world is troubling too. In the US, the net neutrality debate rages. It’s too big an issue to be covered here, but the Financial Times and Harvard Business Review cover the topic intelligently, here and here. In China, regulators are cracking down on online TV, a classic case of a long-gestating occurence that at some arbitrary point grows too big to ignore, suddenly becoming problematic. But, if a recent article on the affair in The Economist is anything to go by, such deeds are likely to merely spur piracy. And in the EU this past week it was disconcerting to see what looked like a mix of jealousy, misunderstanding and outright protectionism when the European Parliament voted for Google to be broken up. No one likes or wants a monopoly; monopolies are bad because they can reduce consumer choice. This is one of the key arguments against the Comcast / Time Warner Cable merger. But Google’s share of advertising revenue is being eaten into by Facebook; its mobile platform Android is popular but is being re-skinned by OEMs looking to put their own branding onto the OS. And Google is not reducing choice in the same way as an offline equivalent, with higher barriers to entry, might. The Economist points out this week:

“[A]lthough switching from Google and other online giants is not costless, their products do not lock customers in as Windows, Microsoft’s operating system, did. And although network effects may persist for a while, they do not confer a lasting advantage… its behaviour is not in the same class as Microsoft’s systematic campaign against the Netscape browser in the late 1990s: there are no e-mails talking about “cutting off” competitors’ ‘air supply'”

The power of lock-in, or substitute products, should not be underestimated. For Apple, this has meant the acquisition of Beats, which they are now planning to bundle in to future iPhones. For Jeff Bezos, this means bundling in Washington Post into future Amazon Fire products. For media and entertainment providers, it means getting customers to extend their relationship with the business into triple- and quad-play services. But it has been telling this month to hear from two CEOs who are questioning the pursuit of quad-play. For the most part, research shows that it can increase customer retention, although not without lowering the cost of the overall product. Sky’s CEO Jeremy Darroch said “If I look at the existing quadplays in the market, not just in the UK, but pretty much everywhere, I think they’re very much driven by the providers who want to extend their offering, rather than, I think, any significant demand from customers”. Vodafone’s CEO Vittorio Colao joined in, “If someone starts bidding for content then you [might] have to yourself… Personally I have doubts that in the long run that this [exclusive content] will really create a lot of value for the platform. It tends to create lots of value for the owner”. Sony meanwhile are pursuing just such a tack of converged services in the form of a new ad campaign. But the benefits of convergence are usually around the customer being able to have multiple touchpoints, not the business being able to streamline assets and services in-house. Sony is in the midst of its own tech war, in consoles, where it is firmly ahead of Microsoft, who were seeking a similar path to that of Sky and Vodafone to dominate the living room. But externalities are impeding – mobile gaming revenues will surpass those of the traditional console next year to become the largest gaming segment; no surprise when by 2020, 90% of the world’s population over 6 years old will have a mobile phone, according to Ericsson. So undoubtedly look for more cyberattacks next year, on a wider range of industries, from film, to telco (lots of customer data there), to politics and economics.

Talent wars – Cui bono?

Our last section is the lightest on content, but perhaps the most important. It is the relation between artist and patron. This relationship took a turn for the worse this year. On a larger, corporate side, this issue played itself out as Amazon and publisher Hachette rowed over fees. Hachette, rather than Amazon, appears to have won the battle; it will set he prices on its books, starting from early 2015. It is unlikely to be the last battle between the ecommerce giant and a publisher, and it may well now give the DoJ the go-ahead to examine the company’s alleged anti-competitive misdeeds.

Elsewhere, artist Taylor Swift’s move to exorcise her catalogue from music streaming service Spotify is a shrewd move on her part. Though an extremely popular platform, driving a large share of revenues to the artists, the problem remains that there is little revenue to start with as much of what there is to do on Spotify can be done for free. The Financial Times writes that it is thanks to artists like Swift that “an era of protectionism is dawning” again (think walled gardens and Compuserve) for content. The danger for the music industry is that other artists take note of what Swift has done and follow suit. This would be of benefit to the individual artists but detrimental to the industry itself. And clearly such an issue doesn’t have to be restricted to the music industry. It’s not hard to anticipate a similar issue affecting film in 2015.

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There’s a plethora of activity going on in TMT as the year draws to a close – much of it will impact how businesses behave and customers interact with said media next year. The secret will be in drawing a long-term strategic course that can be agile enough to adapt to disruptive technologies. However what we’ve hopefully shown here in this article is that there are matters to attend to in multiple sectors that need immediate attention over any amorphous future trends.

How Apple flaunts precedents

If a market sector hasn’t seen a great deal of activity or customer engagement, after several attempts by respected companies, it might be deemed a bit of a risk for a business to enter the market. Why try where others – with the benefit of first-mover advantage – have failed?

For Apple, the opposite is the case. Sony was already trying to make laptops look beautiful with Vaio before the success of the iMac, Creative Labs and others had been selling MP3 players for years before the first iPod launched in 2001. Microsoft had tried its hand at smartphones with the Pocket PC before Apple wowed the world with the iPhone and Intel made a tablet in 2001 that saw little success. So it was curious to see the below quote yesterday from Ben Bajarin, analyst at Creative Strategies, on the eve of the release of Apple’s Watch device.

“There really isn’t a market for wearables yet… You struggle to find the value proposition and the reason for Apple to do it.”

The reason for doing it is precisely because so many of Apple’s peers and pretenders have failed to create a market for wearables, just as they failed to create a market for the tablet, the smartphone and the MP3 player.

On Mobile Trends – 2013 so far…

While it’s difficult nowadays to write about telecoms or the mobile sector without drifting off into other areas of the TMT industry, Zeitgeist spent an evening last month as a guest of Accenture in Cambridge, discussing the successes and failures of the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. It came in the middle of a year so far that has already some significant shifts from mobile companies, in terms of branding, operations and revenue streams.

2013 has seen some interesting news in mobile. The week before last marked, incredibly, the 40th anniversary of the first phone call made from a mobile phone. This year also saw Research in Motion renaming itself to BlackBerry, with shares sliding 8% by the end of the product launch announcement for its eponymous 10 device. It saw Sky acquire Telefonica’s broadband operations, while responding to major complaints about the speed of its own broadband service. It has seen Huawei, which in Q4 of 2012 sold more smartphones than either Nokia, HTC or BlackBerry, come under scrutiny particularly in the US for its lack of transparency. Moreover, after much editorial ink spilled on Facebook’s lack of initiative and innovation in mobile, the release of the ‘super-app’ Chat Heads has piqued interest as it looks to compete with Whatsapp, Viber, iMessage et al., which Ovum reckons cost MNOs $23bn in lost revenue every year. This news mostly pertained to developed markets; JWT Intelligence’s interview with Jana CEO Nathan Eagle features some interesting insights on mobile trends in emerging markets.

Interestingly, 2013 thus far has also been witness to the beginning of more flexible contracts and payments. At the end of March, T-Mobile USA announced it would offer the iPhone to customers for cheaper than its rivals, and customers would not have to sign a contract. It effectively ends handset subsidies – something which Vodafone pledged to do last year and was punished by the stock market when it failed to do so – spreading the full cost of the phone over two years “as a separate line item on the monthly bill”, which may strike many as still quite a commitment. Customers must pay the bill for the phone in full in order to be able to end their tenure with the network. The New York Times elaborates, “Despite T-Mobile’s promise to be more straightforward than other carriers, some consumers might still find it confusing that they have to pay an extra device fee after paying $100 up front for an iPhone.” In the UK, O2 is going a similar route. At the end of last week the company announced similar plans to T-Mobile. While still keeping contracts as an option, the FT explained the company was looking to a plan, dubbed O2 Refresh, “that decoupled the cost of the phone from the cost of calls, texts and data. Customers will be able to buy a phone outright, or pay in instalments over time, and then sign up to a separate service contract that can be cancelled or changed at any time.” Although O2 said in the article that they expected customers to pay the same as they would on a standard contract, the new plans by both network providers will surely add to customer churn. Brands will have to work harder to develop true loyalty rather than relying on the lock-in feeling that adds to switching costs for many customers. Conversely, this added flexibility may make the providers feel less like utilities, creating more choice and differentiation.

At the aforementioned conference Zeitgeist attended last month, Accenture hosted an evening they dubbed “MWC: Fiesta or Siesta?”. It soon became apparent that many of the speakers invited were less than enthused with the conference this year. This was partly because there were no extraordinary leaps in technology or hardware on offer. It was also because of, as one speaker lamented, “the proliferation of suits”. Another speaker complained it was like listening to The Archers: long storylines “that ended up having no conclusion”. The very essence of the conference though is not about trendsetting, or cool new consumer devices. Mobile operators are utilities, the excitement around such an event is not going to be as visceral as that of SXSW or Embedded World. It led some to wonder whether the “real innovation was being developed in such ‘niche’ events, away from the “glitz”. Moreover, perhaps Samsung’s decision not to launch their new S4 handset at the Congress alluded to this lack of excitement, or at least a wish not to be drowned out by other announcements.

Among exciting trends on display at MWC, M2M – something Zeitgeist has written about before – was front and centre at the conference, particularly with regard to cars. Phablets continued to make their foray into the consumer’s view, with bigger screens meaning more data transfer. Zeitgeist wondered whether such a transition would put even more pressure on networks already struggling with large data handling. And although Firefox’s new OS gave some – including those at GigaOm – hope that it could provide more innovation through diversified competition in the marketplace, others, including Tony Milbourn, Executive Chairman of Intelligent Wireless, speaking at the event, thought it “underwhelming” after “lots of hype”. Bendable screens were also to be found at MWC, but those speaking at the Accenture conference like Richard Windsor of Radio Free Mobile said it was early days and much was still to be seen from this new type of phone. Its potential though, he readily conceded, was formidable. Wearable technology was a huge issue at the conference and one that Zeitgeist is particularly interested to see develop, especially as companies like Apple, Sony and Google enter the fray.

It seemed then that the Mobile World Congress failed to reflect what is turning out to be a tumultuous year in telecoms. Not only is there an increasing desire to address consumer needs – in the case of more flexible contracts and more consumer-facing company names – but as economies sputter their way toward ostensible recovery we are also starting to see M&A activity return to the sector. Time will tell whether new technologies, such as M2M or bendable screens can breathe new life into the sector.

On Mobile Loyalty

A little over a week ago, consultancy Analysys Mason hosted a webinar entitled ‘Mobile loyalty schemes: best practice examples and key learnings’. Zeitgeist listened in…

Speaking in the webinar were Tom Rebbeck and Helen Kapapandzic. One of the key messages in the webinar was the distinction between customer retention and true loyalty campaigns. Retention can be achieved through short-term measures (e.g. discounts), loyalty is about longer-term investment. Keeping a customer loyal can benefit both the business and also the end user. According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal referenced by the consultancy, there are myriad benefits to longevity at work, in marriage and by staying with the same providers and businesses. Loyalty it was noted, however, can only support other elements of a service that must already be in place.

For telcos, the key is in reconciling operator wants with customer needs. In the telecoms market in the Western world, where seemingly everyone has a mobile handset of one sort or another, the strategy has moved from winning new customers to keeping current ones. The market is saturated with a flat if not slightly falling rate of growth.

Churn is likely to increase this year over last year in the UK, but not in France. When Zeitgeist asked the reason for this disparity, he was told the reason was that telcos in the French market had focused a significant amount of marketing specifically on decreasing churn. In the UK, the increase is due to the beginning of the expiration of 24-month contracts (such as those affiliated with iPhones), which conversely made churn decline in 2010.

The webinar continued with a roundup of some selected case studies currently being employed by telcos around the world. These took the form of either financial or social-based schemes, and sometimes both. Aircel, for example, was an invitation-only service, offering special invitations to events, exclusive offers, and worked on a points-based system. Proximus seemed to be the most fun offer mentioned, focused as it was on younger customers, who would always be incentivised as there was always a prize guaranteed.

Vodafone’s loyalty scheme, with sponsorship of Formula 1 racing and the London Fashion Weekend, is deservedly well-known. With a simple thank you, and no requirements to join, it serves as an attractive loyalty tool. The loyalty scheme from Starhub seemed to be one of the most innovative and well-developed, a Quintessentially-esque programme, replete with triple play offers.

While it is tempting to think of customer loyalty schemes for telcos as similar in construction to those of supermarkets, the reality is in fact very different, as the consultancy pointed out. Tesco’s enormously popular Clubcard, as recently written about in The Economist, is there for the business to get as much information as possible on customer buying habits, to the extent that it could effect your insurance policy. Telcos already have a significant amount of data that illustrates user behaviour based on a much smaller range of products (SMS, data).

Those schemes that didn’t work, which the team at Analsys Mason came across, were ones involving points-based schemes that were extremely complicated, and might involve getting out an Excel spreadsheet. This kind of thing can be too time-consuming, and ultimately appeal to customers who are already loyal. As a trend, some operators were discontinuing points in preference of social, or simply overlaying it to create social engagement. Of course, as we all know, the key to a successful B2C campaign is often about personalisation. The difficulty though lies in the fact that it is usually easier to measure top-up schemes than emotional ones. This, however, does not alter the importance of personalisation. Rewards to drive tenure, celebrate anniversary of contracts or personal birthdays are all small touches which could be much more widely employed, said those at Analysys Mason.

In all it was an engrossing and stimulating lecture on consumer preferences, technological development and trends in communication. Zeitgeist looks forward to the next one.

Creating Buzz without Causing Offence

When some campaigns go awry, it’s often due to external sensitivities that, in the passion of the creative moment, sometimes go unacknowledged. We might question how an agency could have overlooked such a thing, but as we know it is all too easy for groupthink to set in. In October 2009, Zeitgeist wrote about one such gaffe, when DDB made a very hard-hitting and extremely controversial ad for WWF, using 9/11 imagery. It’s important to point out that the real story there was more to do with the painful process of admission that DDB went through rather than the ad itself.

In February, the South African film Night Drive arrived in cinemas. An agency by the name of 1984 was responsible for the advertising in its domestic market. To drum up interest, 1984 decided to take a viral approach and distribute fliers in Johannesburg, offering “the best prices for all your body parts and organs”. Naturally this raised concern, as the fliers themselves looked genuine in an amateur way, with the police treating it as a serious matter. Indeed, earlier that month, elsewhere on the continent in Liberia, The Economist reported on crimes where “body parts such as the heart, blood, tongue, lips, genitals and fingertips, all used in sorcery to bring wealth and power, are removed”. Worse still, members of government were being implicated as they looked for anything to give them an advantage ahead of elections. The agency’s parent company swiftly apologised.

It’s a terribly unfortunate tale that sometimes can happen. Agencies are susceptible to this more often than you might think, and the reasons for this are twofold. Think about what agencies are trying to do in the creation and execution of a campaign. Firstly, they are aiming for verisimilitude, especially if the product being sold (in this case a film), is fictional. Secondly, they are trying to get someone’s attention in a marketplace that is incredibly cluttered; increasingly the message needs to be unique to stand out above the fray, even more so with a stacked, year-round movie calendar.

Indeed, film marketing is therefore one of the places you are more likely to come across viral efforts. Triumphs include The Dark Knight, which won an award at Cannes Lions in 2009, and the campaign for the excellent film Inception, $100m of which was spent on viral efforts. One of the best features of this campaign was the treasure hunt they organised around the UK, releasing clues on Facebook that could lead fans to tickets to the premiere. Zeitgeist covered this in its review of summer film marketing activity last year. By contrast, the viral campaign for this year’s Limitless, however, was not seen as successful. The campaign involved two prongs. Zeitgeist remembers images such as the one above gracing the London Underground trains, with actor Bradley Cooper selling his super-drug, with one side-effect being “death”. It was confusing, but the copy was such that if the reader was paying any attention, they would soon realise it was fake, and that the website was Paramount Studios-affiliated. The film’s other main effort, a video of a man controlling the screens of Times Square with his iPhone, met with initial excitement, then puzzlement when it emerged it was to do with the film in question.

What do we learn then? Well, we learn that there is a very fine line between obscurity and popularity, between prominence and offence. We learn that there is no golden rule, no pieces of a jigsaw to assemble that makes the consumer look up and listen. And always, always read The Economist.

Serving up a good online experience

As with every summer, the tennis season kicks into high gear with the French Open (aka Roland Garros) in Paris in May, and the Championships at the All England Club (aka Wimbledon) just two weeks later. Brand Republic today published their list of the 10 Best Tennis ads. The sport’s popularity pales in comparison to other pursuits in the UK, and questions always abound at this time of the year as to the country’s woeful showing at the majors. It’s an especially sore point when one looks at recent successes in golf.

Demand for tickets however at the four annual Grand Slams has never been higher. Getting a seat at such events then is a tough ask. Recently, the French Open began making tickets available online for direct purchase. This included being able to select specific days, courts and seats. Of course, having such an easy route meant that there were one or two people who had the same idea as Zeitgeist. Even accessing the website on the stroke of the hour the tickets became available put him behind 3,560 other eager tennis fans (see picture at end of article). Prima facie then this democratisation of ticket availability – rather than having a lottery and corporate hoardings – is a good thing. From a practical perspective however, does it make sense to do it this way? Can or should there be priorities given, based not just on how much people are willing to pay for tickets? Why not give those who actually play the sport more of a priority, or using Foursquare, see how many other tennis tournaments people have attended and judge their passion for tennis based on that. Can they have ticket giveaways to those who “like” Nadal, Federer, etc. on Facebook? It’s a thorny issue; perhaps the route the French Open has taken is the least worst option.

All the slams provide diverting iPhone apps too. However, if you’re going to the effort of providing a service, better make sure it works. Zeitgeist was presented with the below image on their phone while sitting on Court 1 at Wimbledon on Monday, June 20th.

Managing Luxury Online

After the New York, London, Paris and Milan Fashion Weeks – which Dazed condenses into some key trends – comes the hard sell. We know that increasingly people are shopping online, not only while in the comfort of their home but also while out and about, with 25% of shoppers on their phone looking at a store’s website at the same time as they are in a physical shop, according to ForeSee. The stats for those luxury demographics bear even more consideration; Luxury Daily recently reported that 20% of those earning $150k p.a. or more shop via their phones.

As usual the Louis Vuitton show in Paris was streamed live online. The brand was one of the leaders in pioneering the idea of making such events available to hoi polloi. While some esoteric fashionistas may turn their noses up at the democratisation of luxury, they are increasingly swimming against the current as such efforts become more commonplace. Mere days after Marc Jacobs had taken his bow at the end of his latest collection for Louis Vuitton, the site fashionshow.louisvuitton.com was alive with myriad content, including in-depth interviews with Jacobs et al. It’s a beautiful microsite and worth checking out. At the weekend Zeitgeist decided to browse the Vuitton website from the comfort of his bed on his iPhone. One of the nice little things about the Louis Vuitton website is that to navigate there, all you need type in is “lv” and you are redirected to the site. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the mobile internet, where Zeitgeist was instead directed to a website for car insurance. Not a pleasant experience. It’s all the more important to have bought these keywords for mobile devices when the user will find typing less easy and is also likely to have less time than when they are using a desktop computer. It’s a shame because otherwise Vuitton’s digital presence is above reproach.

Worse still was when Zeitgeist then tried to visit Gucci by typing in “Gucci” into their Safari browser on the iPhone. The Gucci logo appeared and all seemed well until it transpired that he had arrived at the German site. Rookie mistakes like this do a disservice to a brand, and hurt it all the more the more luxurious it is.

On the more impressive side, the always admirable Lanvin, doyenne of Mount Street and invader of Savile Row, has finally launched a European e-commerce site, showcasing, as Luxuo puts it, “Lanvin’s dynamic style, the spirit of Alber Elbaz, and the creative wealth of its collections”. The site as whole manages to convey elegance, insouciance, history and contemporary style. Luxury brands have had a hard time adjusting to the online revolution, uncomfortably wondering how to translate the rarefied atmosphere of a boutique into the world of the Internet. Fashion’s Collective puts it best, in an article on redefining exclusivity,

The answer is to redefine what exclusive means. Rather than exclusive being the clientele the brand attracts, it should instead be the experience the brand conveys. Here, the focus shifts to the brand to provide value online just as they do offline. By curating the images, videos, copy, content and experience a brand publishes online, exclusivity is created.

While others have floundered, Lanvin passes the test with flying colours. Very impressive and very distressing news for the Zeitgeist credit card.

Chinese Whispers in London – Chinese brands in the UK

Charles de Gaulle once commented, “China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese.” As astute as this observation was (and is), it was hoped that a trip that Zeitgeist paid to London’s Victoria and Albert Museum ten days ago, entitled ‘Going Global: Advertising Works UK China 2010’, might provide a little more insight. The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising described the morning as,

A conference in association with UKTI and linked to London Design Festival looking at the value of advertising and how the UK can act as a creative hub to Chinese brands seeking to go global.

Hosted by the IPA, the conference involved talks from a series from numerous luminaries from Ogilvy, BBH, McCann Erickson and JWT. Our emcee for the morning, IPA Director of Marketing Ms Janet Hull, noted that the UK was the fourth largest market in the world for ad expenditure. Ms Hull also talked about the increasing interaction between UK and China advertising; senior BBH and M&C Saatchi people have been on IPA visits throughout China over the past 18 months.

The great Rory Sutherland (whom Zeitgeist has mentioned in previous articles on behavioural economics and neuromarketing) was next up, speaking in an introductory manner to the morning’s proceedings, stressing that “value is subjective”, that it is created at the point of consumption. Added value exists mostly in the mind, he went on, not in the physical atrributes – “the atoms” of your product. He gave luxury brands as an example of this. He also pointed out that China currently has six brands in the top 100 (six years ago they only had one), according to WPP’s BrandZ survey (which Zeitgeist played a small part in helping develop). He foresees many more Chinese brands entering this pantheon in the next few years. One of those brands is China Mobile, and it was the Chief Representative of this company, Henry Ge, who would speak next.

Launched in 1995, China Mobile is now a $53bn brand. A recent survey conducted revealed 74% customer satisfaction with the brand, higher than any landline or mobile provider in the US. Curiously, not only do they have a very high loyalty rate, they also have a very high return rate, suggesting that perhaps of those who do leave, most will come back. Mr. Ge talked next about brand strategy, talking about how the company offered different plans (divided by pricing, services and rewards) in order to exploit customer segementation, while also seeking differentiation from competition and pricing for sustainable growth. Also of interest was to hear the development of the brand’s USP over the last ten years. In 2000, the brand’s selling point was coverage. In 2010, it’s platform, referring to Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android OS, as well as more specifically mobile shops and apps. The future? Well, according to Mr. Ge, the future is all about experience, putting the consumer in control. Nothing new you might think; it will depend on how China Mobile and others execute this. It gels well with a recent article in the New York Times which stated “spending money for an experience… produces longer-lasting satisfaction than spending money on plain old stuff”. Of course, as a company comprised principally of engineers, Mr. Ge confessed that those at China Mobile would be understandably nervous about such a shift in power.

Orlando Hooper-Greenhill, Director of Global Planning at JWT spoke next on HSBC, aka Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation, set up in 1865. Any regular traveller would be able to tell you of the bank’s perpetual presence on “jet bridges” – the bits linking the airport to the plane – the idea behind which, Orlando stated, was to say goodbye to you as you left one country, and for it to be the first thing that says hello in a new country. HSBC’s proposition rests on the suggestion that even though their offices are spread the world over, they still provide superior service through their local knowledge. This was exemplified when Orlando showed the room two TV ads for HSBC, one from the US and one from China. Zeitgeist has had a terrible time tracking down the Chinese ad, and at the time of publication Orlando hadn’t responded to our request for where we could get our hands on a copy to post here. Needless to say the ads demonstrated an insight into each audience that it was targeting more than simply laying its cards on the table as to what services the bank could provide. He also presented the audience with a fascinating graphic, which Zeitgeist did manage to track down, see below. It puts into context just what a large audience is waiting out there for your advertising messages (albeit an audience with some maturing to do still).

Next up was Li Fangwu, Assistant Secretary General of the China Advertising Association. He began by mentioning that it was in 1978 when the ad industry as we know it (or don’t) today was “restored”, presumably as part of the Beijing Spring, currently with 170,000 agencies and over a million employees, which is quite staggering. However, Mr. Fangwu was forthcoming as he showed that year-on-year advertising turnover had declined since 2005, which made Zeitgeist realise that China is not completely immune to the effects of a recession. Most amazing was the advertising law dating from 1994, currently under revision. The levels of bureaucracy involved in getting advertisements legally processed was stupefying. Hopefully the blurry pictures below of the numerous government bodies needed to rubber-stamp their approval of a campaign gives an impression of the dizzying complexity currently involved. The word ‘byzantine’ comes to mind.

Nick Blunden of Profero was up next, who spent part of the beginning of the conference polishing up his presentation sat on the row in front of Zeitgeist and a colleague. Mr. Blunden was full to the brim with interesting, topical statistics proving the oft-proved power of the Internet etc. One of the more interesting stats was that smartphone handsets will find their way into the hands of 250m pairs of hands this year, quite a figure. Among some of the more innovative and intriguing case studies he mentioned were Pepsi’s superb Refresh campaign, Lufthansa’s MySkyStatus and Diageo’s Windsor campaign in Korea. Last but certainly not least was Chris Macdonald, CEO of McCann Erickson did his best to convince Zeitgeist that he shouldn’t shoot off to the Cote d’Azur when the Olympics (and the unwashed masses in their millions) descend upon London in 2012. An informative talk all round, and surely but a taste of things to come as China’s sphere of influence grows.

Android Invasion

Sales of phones running Google’s Android OS platform finally overtook sales of Apple’s iPhone, it was reported today in the FT. This is of course big news, as the Android OS until now has been [portrayed, either self-perpetuated or by the media] as the underdog. However it was an inveitability as the Android operating system is now available on many different handsets from multiple manufacturers, who target a wide breadth of consumer demographics. Conversely, the iPhone OS runs on a single handset, the iPhone, built for a robust yet niche audience.

Zeitgeist paid Google UK HQ a visit recently to listen to the latest Android innovations, and can imagine the ensuing party that will take place in celebration of these results. The partying will be dampened however by related news that Oracle is to sue Google over Android over patent infringement.

Visiting Google HQ

On Monday morning, fully half the Zeitgeist team awoke from its slumber, left its abode and walked the 15-minute walk to Mecca. While not a dedicated fanboy, the integral part this company has played in the evolution of the Internet over the past decade, (Zeitgeist first remembers using their search engine in 1999), is undeniable. The morning would be spent in the hallowed halls of Google HQ. Mobile advertising for the Android platform would be the focus.

After munching on a croissant, downing an Earl Grey and meandering past the ice cream delivery bicycle, Zeitgeist was talked at by Ian Carrington, Amanda Rosenberg, Reto Meier, Scott Seaborn from that indefatigable ad agency Ogilvy and from IconMobile; Steve Griffiths.

Given the high volume of iPhones-to-people ratio in the room, it was not best to start off the morning with a non-so-subtle jibe at the aforementioned device. However this was indeed how the morning started; these jibes became the sine qua non of the whole event. Given the current regulatory scrutiny Google’s search empire faces regarding Net Neutrality, any hubris around ‘open source’ might have also have been best kept checked, yet there it was. Those who persevered in their listening heard that 2010 was indeed the year of the mobile. For some it may have seemed like they had been stuck in an echo chamber; every year since at least 2005 has been deemed ‘the year of the mobile’, occasionally with the suffix “but this time it really is!”. Zeitgeist would not care to argue with the statement though, as finally consumer desire and the corporate technology to suit that desire seem to be approaching an optimum. Last Christmas, there was a sale on eBay through a mobile device every two seconds. We were told that “Everything Google do, we have a mobile version of”. Despite this poor syntax, this was an impressive statement; something simple and logical, but surely something that only a very small number of companies could lay claim to.

Google’s director of mobile advertising said that the company’s mantra when developing new products was now “mobile first”, again, an impressive affirmation when you really think about it. Currently there are fifty times as many searches performed on smartphones vs merely WAP-enabled handsets. So the iPhone, Android platform and its myrmidons are clearly providing a better user experience for consumers, that they in turn are utilising – though it will be interesting to see whether the soon-to-be-introduced data tariffs will have any impact on this. This may not be the year of the mobile, but it certainly is the year when futureproofing becomes a sound investment: In 2013, smartphone sales are predicted to overtake PC sales, which will coincide with mobile internet use overtaking desktop computer use. It’s quite plausible by then that such distinctions between types of computers will be even fuzzier than now, (iPhone, iPad, netbook, laptop, desktop) if not moot.

Google is currently in the throes of redesigning its Android application store, currently with 60,000 apps and growing (compared to Apple’s 250,000+). Apps are an interesting phenomenon. With Apple’s initial inception, they are now quite the hot item, the thing your client’s clamour after without knowing exactly why. Yet what service do they provide? According to the meeting yesterday, 95% of Apple’s apps are not used after twenty days. For Windows’ part, half of the ‘Marketplace for Mobile’ apps are made by Microsoft, suggesting they have some way to go before accruing a wide, collaborative audience. The utility of an app, it was suggested to the audience yesterday, could be one of two things; engagement or purchase. Your app is there to either enhance the brand (like Chanel or Dior) or to encourage purchase (Argos). Time, lack thereof and frequency are also a large contributing factor to an app’s use. Simply put, it would not be worth someone’s while to download the Expedia app to their phone in order to book a single flight. It would, however, be of use to a regular traveller.

The audience was later shown a graph showing mobile and desktop search queries throughout an average day, with troughs and peaks mirrored between the two systems. Google stated they were not sure whether mobile search had a cannabilisation effect on desktop search, and that they “don’t care”.

We were then treated to a presentation by Amanda who delved into the world of Android-capable handsets. This included voice search – asking the phone directly “What are the best restaurants for breakfast near Union Square in San Francisco?” led to a satisfying list of responses – and voice text; unfortunately punctuation is something that remains almost impossible to do by voice, currently. There was also an example of Google Goggles, which, as well as being able to identify a building from a picture taken by a user, can also scan hard copy text, translate it and then pronounce it for you. All of which, except for the semantics of context, was most impressive.

Scott Seaborn then stepped up to the plate, going through some interesting case studies of mobile advertising. Two in particular caught Zeitgeist’s eye. The first was the Seer app that IBM updated for this year’s Championships at Wimbledon. This interesting video from the somnambulistic “Click” show on the BBC details the amazing thing that OgilvyOne’s app can achieve. Also quite fun was the new Coke Zero iPhone app called The Cleaner, soon to be released.

Steve from WPP’s Iconmobile brought up some similarly interesting case studies. The first of which was for T-Mobile as it attempted to encourage paperless billing with a great mobile initiative that involved “green” perks. The other highlight was that of a North Face campaign in China, which won a Silver Lion at Cannes. An interesting co-incidence of brand and region, as most Chinese people are currently gravitating to an urban life, and do not traditionally treat hiking or mountain-climbing as a past-time.

We then heard more about the Android platform. 160k devices that support Android are activated daily now. One of the nicer features that Zeitgeist saw was the enablement of cross-app usage. A user could be browsing through nearby restaurants on one app. Upon finding the one they want and clicking on a button in the app to book a table, the user would then be taken straight to the OpenTable app, which would immediately display the available times and tables for the restaurant you were just looking at on a separate application. While convenient and a nice move, this does present a potential hindrance for advertisers if users begin to navigate through the web merely by going from proprietary app to app rather than using a browser where they would be exposed to more advertising.

Conversely, the expandable ads that will begin to appear on Android platforms while surfing looked great, especially for things like films (the example we saw was for Adam Sandler’s Funny People). Lastly, we saw the new ‘Navigation’ app, which is currently only available in the US. Its map system allowed for alerts to the user for nearby amenities on their chosen route, e.g. cinemas, restaurants, etc. Interestingly, it also allowed for sponsored layers, meaning advertisers could put specific flags down on the map for particular promotions, to encourage people to take advantage of en route to their final destination.

As for Google’s final destination? Well, we’ll save that for a future article.